So I watched Half Blood Prince this evening, and I think it’s time to talk about Draco and the Vanishing Cabinet.
I mean, I’m always ready to talk about Draco and the Vanishing Cabinet, because the scenes concerning it are some of the most beautiful and sad in the movies, in my humble opinion.
But more specifically, I’ve been thinking about the objects that Draco vanishes: the apple, and the white bird.
See, these two things are things that, while watching, without even thinking much, seem - right.
Even just subconsciously, the imagery used here to me just fits, in a way that is not always easy to explain.
So I decided to actually think about it for a moment, and I realised just how significant these two objects are for Draco.
I mean, for starters, they’ve both appeared before, in Prisoner of Azkaban, arguably the HP film that puts most effort into fancy cinematography, imagery and symbolism.
First we have Draco’s message to Harry, which is strangely familiar:
And - well, we all know about Draco and his apple.
So even on a basic level, there’s an association here.
But just think of colour for a moment. The objects that Draco vanishes are crisp green and white.
You mean like…the distinctive green of Slytherin, or the Malfoys’ familiar pale colouring?
Like Snape or Umbridge, Draco is one of the characters in HP with incredibly distinctive use of colour throughout the books and movies. Picture Draco Malfoy for a moment. Has he ever worn anything that isn’t black, white or green? It's so easy to associate the colours of the apple and bird Draco vanishes to him himself.
And then consider the word purity.
Draco is a lot to do with purity.
First of all, of course, we have the whole “pure-blood” idea. But we also have the whole ego of Draco, his appearance, the way he holds himself. I again ask you to picture Draco Malfoy. How does he appear? Is it neat, clean, crisp? Is it in the manner of someone who carries himself highly, with confidence in his status, his class, his role, his purity?
And then consider an apple, uneaten, uniform, green. Consider a bird, a pure, white, perfect, beautiful bird.
These two objects aren’t just random things that happen to be there.
And the reason I’m bringing this up is because this association makes what happens next to these objects so much more striking, and so much more painful, even before you really realise the link is there.
Because these two objects, these pure, perfect objects, are turned so that they are not perfect anymore.
These two objects are eaten into, mutilated, killed, destroyed.
And for Draco, much the same can be said.
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